Telethons in the 90s

[thetank]

Last night's Comic Relief show boasted a £74m total. Was wondering how much these Telethons things made when I was a nipper.

Wikipedia only gives the totals raised for Comic Relief back to 1999 and Children in Need back to 2004.

Does anybody remember what kind of numbers these shows were putting up as their 'on the night' totals before then?

[gatso]

thames telethon, £1.25m in 1980 but that only ran in london and only 10 hours

first national one in 88 raised at least this much

Click to see full-size image.

[AndrewT]

For early ones, the totals on the night would be almost exclusively based on the pledges of people phoning in on the night, and the rule of thumb was that you could double the total at the end of the night once all the money came in from people sitting in baths of baked beans and what not.

Now it gets boosted by adding in all the money raised before the night from the promo tie-ins with various businesses, which turns the evening into an almost never-ending string of adverts.

[TRIP5]

thames telethon, £1.25m in 1980 but that only ran in london and only 10 hours

first national one in 88 raised at least this much

Click to see full-size image.

HAHAHAHAHA NO WAY!!!!!

I was at that one with school!!!!! well, part of it!! They used to change the audience round every 2 hours to get more people & contributions. I remember on the way back to the coach, my friends going 'ooo look, he's famous'...so off we ran down the street after some random old (to us) porty fellow (to everyone) to get an autograph!!!

Later found out it was Rupert Murdock - oh, the shame

xx